In this activity, students create a scale model depicting the vertical distance from Earth’s surface to various features and objects, including Earth’s atmospheric layers, the Van Allen Radiation Belts, and geocentric satellites. Students also...(View More) compare the vertical distances to these features and objects with distances from their classroom to other common points on the ground. Includes background science information; student reading, handouts and worksheet; teacher information; and suggested extensions and adaptations for students with vision impairment.(View Less)

Students will learn about satellites that gather data about Earth systems by reading a NASA press release and viewing a NASA eClips video segment. Then students will practice dividing multi-digit numbers using satellite data related to the Earth's...(View More) ozone layer. Common Core State Standards for Mathematics and English Language Arts are identified. This activity is part of the Space Math multi-media modules that integrate NASA press releases, NASA archival video, and mathematics problems targeted at specific math standards commonly encountered in middle school textbooks. The modules cover specific math topics at multiple levels of difficulty with real-world data and use the 5E instructional sequence.(View Less)

Learners will build an open spectrograph to calculate the angle the light is transmitted through a holographic diffraction grating. After finding the desired angles, the students will design their own spectrograph using the information learned. The...(View More) activity is part of Project Spectra, a science and engineering program for middle-high school students, focusing on how light is used to explore the Solar System.(View Less)

In this lesson plan students use temperature data to look at the measures of central tendency. By using mean, median, and mode, students will gain a better understanding about weather patterns from several locales throughout Virginia.

In this field activity, students observe clouds, and are introduced to dichotomous key to classify cloud types. Students also make weather observations of current weather and record and track changes in weather over time. Materials/equipment needed...(View More) include weather instruments (thermometers and barometers) and graph paper. A student self-assessment rubric, vocabulary linked to an on-line glossary, a list of elementary level trade books on weather, and teacher notes and class management suggestions are provided. This hands-on activity is related to NASA CERES Students' Cloud Observations Online (S’COOL) project.(View Less)

In this activity, students compare and analyze lapse rates (rate of decrease in atmospheric temperature with height) for two U.S. locations. It requires the use of atmospheric temperature data downloaded from the Internet into a student developed...(View More) Excel spreadsheet. A detailed instructional tutorial (with sample screen images) for importing data from the Internet and downloading it into Excel spreadsheets is included. This lesson uses student- and citizen science-friendly microsets of authentic NASA Earth system science data from the MY NASA DATA project. It also includes data analysis tools.(View Less)

In this lesson, students analyze land cover change in order to help them grasp the extent, significance, and consequences of land cover change; and to introduce them to the perspective of space-based Earth observations. Students learn to identify...(View More) kinds of land cover (such as roads, fields, urban areas, and lakes) in Landsat satellite images. They decide which land cover types allow the passage of water into the soil (pervious) and which types do not allow it (impervious). They consider some effects of increasing impervious surface area on ecosystem health. Students then make land cover maps using two Landsat satellite images taken about a decade apart, and quantify the change of land cover from pervious to impervious surface. They also make predictive maps of what they think the nature and extent of land cover change in the area will be in the year 2025, and speculate about the consequences for the availability of water for people and ecosystems. Students justify in writing their predictive maps and their thoughts about the consequences of change. This activity uses Landsat images of Phoenix, Arizona; links are also provided for finding Landsat images of other cities.(View Less)

This is a lesson about society and space exploration. Learners will survey the public about their different opinions about space exploration and the use of robotics in space exploration. Then they will represent and analyze the results. This is...(View More) lesson 5 of 16 in the MarsBots learning module.(View Less)

This is an activity about auroras and the scientific terminology used to describe them. Learners will read an article that provides an introduction to specific terms and concepts related to auroras and auroral substorms and examine photographs of a...(View More) 2003 aurora and descriptions of an 1859 aurora to identify the various phases of auroral substorms. This is activity 11 from Exploring Magnetism: Magnetic Mysteries of the Aurora.(View Less)